Wednesday, 3 June 2009

Creating our own brief

After we had done our mind maps on why we think children like animation, we then set about writing our own brief for a short/ident promoting animation for children at BCU using what we had found out in the previous sessions. We needed to make it fun and to show what can be done at BCU, targeting 7 year olds and potential future students.

The first brief was far too vague and wasn’t really clear on what we were doing.

We then started again using the knowledge of previous modules briefs as a rough guideline but with our own learning points.

The final brief:

BCU - Animating for children

Produce a 20-30 second Animation combining a variety of styles and techniques promoting animation at BCU specifically children’s animation. The style of animation is to be targeted at younger children, while the advert itself is aimed at prospective students and professionals interested in the animation course and animation for children at BIAD.

The animation must showcase different techniques of animation while tying them together in a unified way, utilizing knowledge of what children like in animation and what it means to be a 7 year old. Explore what makes animation interesting to a 7 year old and why they like it. Why would you like it when you were 7?

Use your mind maps to explore what we discussed it means to be 7 and look back on your own experiences to gain an insight into the 7-year-old mind.

Design a character and think of ways he or she can interact with other characters and scenes created by other members of the group. Think about the target audience and what they do/ play/ create/ like, refer to the discussions we have had.

Get inspiration from animations you enjoyed as a child and think about why you liked them and why they work. Incorporate this research in the design of your character and scenes.

It must be lively and attractive to both target audiences but more towards children. Make it fun while you could also showing the processes behind animation, for example showing the mistakes that can happen, and the creation of new characters by existing characters- A character given a pencil and drawing himself a friend.